How Does a Sex Addiction Develop?
A sexual addiction comes from developmental trauma
This is a simple way of putting it, and there are exceptions. But this article will unpack how to understand this and provide some examples of developmental trauma.
The childhood years hold the key
Where does it come from? Is it due to a high sex drive, raging testosterone? What about toxic masculinity? Is it from living in a hyper-sexualized culture or from viewing porn at a young age and it spiraling out of control? How does it develop into such a problem for some men? The heart of the issue is deeper and earlier.
To fully grasp, we cannot overlook the family of origin and childhood years. In fact, they hold the key.
Certified Sex Addiction Therapist Dr. Michael Barta, author of TINSA writes,
“After hearing hundreds of accounts where early childhood traumas or ADEs were consistently reported by my clients, I quickly began to understand that these experiences were directly related to their sexual addictions.”
Sex addiction and trauma
Not every sexual addiction has its roots in trauma, though many do. In fact, this has been my experience working with these men. But what kinds of trauma are we talking about?
Big-T and little-t trauma
Adverse Developmental Experiences (ADEs for short), such as poverty, emotional abuse, exposure to violence, natural disaster, bullying, and traumatic separation, can have damaging consequences on a child’s brain and nervous system. But it’s not just these big-T traumas that can cause great harm. Little-t traumas damage as well.
Dr. Barta writes in his book TINSA: Trauma Induced Sexual Addiction, “In my experience with treating addiction, I have found that most often my clients have been subjected to traumatic experiences that most experts would consider to be little-t traumas.”
What are little-t traumas? Here are some examples from TINSA as well as my own experience working with men with sexual addiction:
They were rarely connected with as children.
They were invalidated for who they were.
They were made responsible for their parents’ happiness or family’s wellbeing.
They were belittled for their interests.
They were put down for their emotions.
They were yelled at.
They were kicked, hit, punched, or slapped.
They were sexually abused.
They were not taught how to connect with, understand or resolve their emotions.
They were abandoned.
They were made to feel not good enough.
They were made to feel not smart enough.
They were made fun of for their spiritual beliefs.
They were excluded from a group.
They were not understood for who they were.
They were made to feel like something was wrong with them.
They experienced separation or loss.
They were shamed for being vulnerable.
Trauma is subjective
It’s important to note that trauma is subjective. Just because someone experiences one of the above situations doesn’t mean they have trauma. There are a host of factors at play.
Trauma only becomes trauma when a person’s brain and nervous system become overwhelmed by an experience and they are unable to process and resolve it, whether that experience is a one-time event or an ongoing situation. This is why two people can experience the same event, one person becomes overwhelmed and stuck while the other walks away unscathed.
Having to self-regulate
But how does a sexual addiction develop from these kinds of experiences? In short, because sex and masturbation are often the first ways we learn to self-soothe, they can easily become go-to ways of self-regulation when we are stressed, anxious, ashamed, angry, sad or lonely, especially when we lacked healthy, relational ways of soothing.
I’ll leave you with a final quote from Barta: “When looking for the root cause of addiction, we must ask ourselves, how did our environment shape our brains to predispose us to use substances or behaviors as a means of regulating our own emotions?”